


See You On The Other Side

by fandomlimb



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Drug Use, Dubious Consent, Kavinsky is his own warning, M/M, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-14
Updated: 2017-02-16
Packaged: 2018-09-17 09:50:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 9
Words: 8,299
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9317606
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fandomlimb/pseuds/fandomlimb
Summary: This piece jumps off from Chapter 44 of The Dream Thieves (the red pill chapter) and then will diverge from canon so that Ronan and Kavinsky enter the dream place together. I wanted to explore a more consensual dynamic to Ronan/Kavinsky's relationship while still honoring Ronan's confusion/conflicted feelings and hopefully create a better ending for Kavinsky, whom I found to be a fascinating but highly problematic character.This is my first TRC fic - I hope you enjoy!More chapters to come!





	1. Red Hots

“What does that one do?” Ronan asked as Kavinsky pulled a shiny pill out of his pocket that looked just like a Red Hots candy. Ronan hated Red Hots. His stomach was already queasy from the night (nights?) and day (days?) he’d just spent with nothing but beer, Twizzlers and green pills jostling around in his system. Adding another unknown substance into the mix did not seem like a good idea but Ronan was beyond knowing if any of this had been a good idea. So fuck it. If this helped him get any closer to bringing the Pig back from his dreams he was willing to take the risk.

“Bonus round,” Kavinsky said. “Open.” Kavinsky smirked (sneered? it was hard to tell with him) and placed the pill on the tip of Ronan’s surprised tongue.

His finger lingered there just long enough for Ronan to taste salt and something mechanical and automotive, like grease or gasoline. For that split second Ronan was transported away from the abandoned fair grounds lined with Kavinsky’s one hundred dream-Mitsubushi rejects and Ronan’s failed Camaro; he was instead sitting on the floor of the auto shop where Adam worked part-time. He inhaled the rusty and comforting smell of the garage and looked up at Adam.

Adam’s attention was fixed intently on the inner workings of a customer’s busted car guts and not on Ronan. Ronan told himself he would only look at Adam for five seconds. That’s all he would allow himself. Adam had a small grease mark on his cheekbone that in the dim light looked like a bruise. Five seconds was all Ronan needed to imagine standing up, placing his hand on Adam’s cheek and gently rubbing the stain away. Five seconds to imagine tracing his thumb down Adam’s sharp jaw line and for feeling the soft pulse of Adam’s neck against Ronan’s palm. Five seconds for breathing in Adam’s earthy and slightly metallic scent that always reminded Ronan of an old wooden tool chest at the Barns that was filled with Niall’s dreamt-up tools: a screw driver that made any punctured surface pour out Screwdriver cocktails ( _good one, Dad_ ), a hammer that sang The Ballad of John Henry with every swing, a wrench that made the holder feel like he was having his insides pulled apart with sadness due to the departure of a dear loved one. Adam looked up from the open hood of the car and met Ronan’s eyes. Ronan quickly averted his gaze but when he glanced back up Adam’s eyes were still resting on Ronan.

Kavinsky’s finger for that split second was Adam’s and he slid it delicately into the hot wet suction of Ronan’s mouth.

Ronan’s face was already flushed from alcohol, sun and fatigue but a fresh wave of heat rose to the surface when he swallowed the red pill and registered Kavinsky’s eyes lingering on the spot on his lips where his finger had just been. He didn’t know it was possible for his body and mind to feel this stretched taut and freely unspooled at the same time.

Kavinsky said, “Good luck. Dying’s a boring side effect.”

Then the pill hit Ronan’s stomach and his vision slid out of joint, like watching a 3-D movie without glasses on.

 _Wait, I’m not ready for this_ , Ronan thought and doubled over. But it was too late.

Ronan heard a rushing noise so close in his ears it was like he was going through a car wash. But then he realized it was just the wind rustling through the trees. But the breeze was visible and leaving a CMYK-tinted comet trail behind each wavering branch and whispering _Nosce te ipsum_ over and over too close into his ears. The world was spinning but his pulse was slowing slowing slowing. Years worth of tight knots and calcified muscle in his shoulders and neck started twitching and releasing in violent spasms. He felt a burst of blood right behind his heart.

He lowered himself onto his chest and rested his head the hood of the failed Camaro. The car’s blazing orange paint in his blurry vision bled into the pulsing orange sunset. He didn’t know where the car ended and the sky began and even though his body rested on hot metal he felt like he was also suspended in the air, freefalling and frozen at the same time, buckled into the harness of his body while his brain stretched on and out into infinity.

He couldn’t keep track anymore of what was a dream and what was real.

 _Nosce te ipsum,_ the trees whispered.

 _“Ipse se nihil scire id unum sciat”_ , Ronan whispered back. He was relieved that he could still form sentences, even if they were only in Latin.

Ronan heard the hood of the car groan as Kavinsky leaned over him and said hot and close into his ear, “You always had such a hard on for that Latin shit, huh Lynch? How about this one: _Carpe noctem._ Because that’s what we do, don’t we? Seize the night?”

Kavinsky exhaled. Then Ronan felt a slow drag of fingernails over the hooked and barbed patterns of his tattoo. Ronan’s skin erupted in goose bumps and he felt a tense itch between his shoulder blades like he was a bound bird or angel dying to stretch its wings. Kavinsky drew a line all the way down Ronan’s back and traced the butterfly-shape of Ronan’s pelvic bone over top of Ronan’s humming skin. Ronan did not move. He did not breathe. Because if he didn’t move or breath then this was just a dream. Like the talking trees. Like the Technicolor breeze.

“ _Quid vis_ , Greywaren?”

Was it the trees that had asked him? Or Kavinsky?

Kavinsky positioned his hips so they were pressing into Ronan.

“ _Quid vis_ , Ronan?”

Then: Kavinksy’s tongue traced the line of Ronan’s spine from his shoulder blades down to the dipped basin of his low back. He licked a pool of sweat that had formed there.

“You taste like leather,” Kavinsky said.

Ronan’s eyelids drooped and he fell into unconsciousness. But he jerked awake only a second later. And when he did his eyes found Kavinksy doing a line of coke off the top of the car.

He couldn’t keep track anymore of what was a dream and what was real.

He couldn’t keep track anymore of what he wanted and what he was afraid of. Or if there was even a difference.

Ronan met Kavinksy’s eyes and he saw only dilated black pupils, no irises, like his eyes had finally become as dark and reflective as his sunglasses. He wanted to see how far and deep he could dive into that black lake of Kavinsky’s eyes. He wanted to see himself reflected in that abyss. Ronan heat-shivered. On second thought, he wanted to dream, get the Camaro and get the fuck out of here. And punch Kavinsky in the skull for dropping this fucked up pill into his system. Ronan shuddered and twitched, still trapped in the tar pit sinkhole of his drugged body.

“Help me,” he asked.

Kavinsky crouched down.

“Tell me what you want first. Then I’ll help you.”

“Come with me. To the dream place. I don’t think I can do this alone.”

“No can do, sweetheart.”

“Please.”

Kavinsky cocked his head so that they were now truly face to face.

“Say it again.”

“Please.”

Kavinsky grabbed a red pill from his pocket, swallowed it and grabbed onto Ronan’s wrist, holding him by his leather wristbands.

“See you on the other side.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Latin phrases
> 
> Nosce te ipsum - Know thyself  
> Ipse se nihil scire id unum sciat - I know that I know nothing  
> Carpe noctem - Seize the night  
> Quid vis - What do you want
> 
> [*my tumblr*](http://fandomlimb.tumblr.com/)


	2. Ophidia in herba

Ronan opened his eyes and saw that instead of being in the field surrounded by a fun-house reflection of white Mitsbushis, he was lying on top of the Camaro parked in a small clearing of the dreaming forest. He had full use of his body again, thank God. But something was wrong. The forest was muted and frayed around the edges. The trees didn’t talk to Ronan but he heard a gasping wheeze, a death-rattle breeze, circling round and round him, like a mosquito buzzing insistently in his ears.

Kavinsky was nowhere to be seen. But Orphan Girl peered at him with sad, moon-saucer eyes. She flickered like a projection.

“Why do you steal from us?” she asked.

“I’m sorry,” Ronan said. “It’s not for me.”

Ronan tried to remember everything Kavinsky had taught him.

 _Know what you want._  
_In and out._  
_Like a motherfucking thief_.

“What do you want, Ronan?” Orphan girl asked. But it felt like a completely different question when she asked it than when Kavinsky had asked it.

He knew what he _didn’t_ want. He didn’t want to see tears pool in the corners of Orphan Girl's eyes. He didn’t want the trees to hiss in his ear _: Ophidia in herba._

Snake in the grass.

Blue’s freak cousin or whatever she was had called him the Snake the first time she’d met him. It made his blood boil just thinking about it. Because he didn’t want to be a snake. He wanted to be a raven. Ronan suddenly felt a jolt of longing and worry: Chainsaw. He’d left her at home for the last unknown number of days he’d been with Kavinsky and even though he knew Noah would have fed her while he was gone it still made him anxious and angry at himself for neglecting her. Chainsaw was the truest thing he’d ever brought back from a dream and he hadn’t stolen her. She was a part of him, part of his heart. How could he steal from his own heart?

In the corner of his vision he saw another car in the clearing: but this one was rusted, misshapen and overgrown with branches and vines. Noah’s red Mustang. But it looked so much more decayed since they’d seen it last. Ronan felt like if he touched the car it would crumble to dust.

“I’m sorry this happened to you, Noah. I’m sorry, Cabeswater.”

He also knew one more thing: he didn’t want to hide anymore. He wasn’t a thief.

“Please let me take the car. Just this last time. Then I promise I’ll stop. I’m sorry.”

Then Kavinsky appeared beside him with a hissing pop. His pinky was still hooked around Ronan’s leather wrist straps.

“So our secret place is the same after all, huh?” he asked and let out a manic peel of laughter.


	3. The Fire Inside

Every muscle in Ronan’s body tensed and the hairs on the back of his neck bristled. The fire inside him roared to a blaze. He grabbed Kavinksy by the shoulder and pushed him down onto the hood of the Camaro.

“So you wanna play rough, Lynch?” Kavinsky asked, unfazed by the sudden violence.

Ronan shoved him hard again against the Camaro, which rocked and rattled with a metallic clang of protest.

“What the fuck was that pill you gave me back there? Some sort of ketamine?” Ronan asked through ragged breaths.

Kavinsky smirked. “Consent is overrated.”

Ronan reared his right arm back and slammed his fist into Kavinsky’s nose with a bone-and-marrow cracking force. He wanted to smash Kavinksy’s face over and over again into the car’s hood but he stopped himself short. He didn’t want the monsters inside him to unleash here, in his dream forest, where the trees and Orphan Girl could pierce straight through the armored guard of his secrets. He also didn’t want to dent the Camaro.

Ronan stepped away from the car and steeled his voice to a razor. “Don’t you dare fucking touch me again without my permission.”

Blood gushed from Kavinsky’s nose but he didn’t bother to try and stop the flow. He let it drip. He ran his tongue leisurely over his lips then spit a wad of blood out onto the car’s hood.

“So the next time I touch you, you want me to say please?”

“There is not going to be a next time.”

“Are you sure? You didn’t seem to mind it so much back there.”

“That’s because I couldn’t fucking move you ingrate.”

“Listen, Lynch. This will all go much easier if you realize two things. One, I’m a fucking thief. And two, you want me. So stop lying to yourself.”

Ronan inhaled and exhaled, trying to smother the volcano inside him with deep steady breaths.

Kavinsky propped himself up on his elbows. His ribs were visible like outspread fingers pushing up through his pale skin. Rivulets of blood dripped over his chin and trickled into thin tributaries down his chest. With his index finger he slowly traced a cross pattern in the blood on the skin over his heart. His heavy-lidded glittering eyes never left Ronan’s.

Neither of them spoke. But the trees rustled and whispered in Ronan’s ears: _Fallaces sunt rerum species._

Then Orphan Girl, who had been hidden behind a tree this whole time, approached Kavinsky. She tore off a piece of her ragged shirt and offered it to him.

“Who the fuck is this?” Kavinsky asked Ronan.

Ronan looked at Orphan Girl with knives in his eyes. “Get out of here. This doesn’t concern you,” he told her. “He doesn’t deserve your help.”

Kavinsky took the offered piece of cloth and stanched his still-bleeding nose. Orphan Girl glared at Ronan and scampered off deeper into the forest.

“So you have you one, too, huh?” Kavinsky asked, though his voice was pinched and muffled by the cloth over his nose.

“What the hell are you talking about?”

Ronan pointed to Noah’s rusted-out overgrown Mustang tucked away from the clearing. At first Ronan didn’t understand what Kavinsky meant. Then he saw two dark eyes peering at him through the cracked driver’s side window. They belonged to a young boy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fallaces sunt rerum species - Looks can be deceiving


	4. Krum

Ronan blinked and the eyes were gone.

He turned back to Kavinsky and asked, “Who was that boy?”

“Who was that girl with the goat feet? Don’t tell me: she’s your elf spirit guide or some fairy shit.”

“She’s just…here sometimes with me. I don’t know where she came from. I just call her Orphan Girl.”

“Orphan Girl? That’s the best you could come up with, Lynch? At least give her a fucking name, man. She was sort of shiny and grimy at the same time. Like a pearl stuck in a shell. I’d name her Pearl.”

“So we get here and suddenly you turn from a coked-out kleptomaniac sociopath to a fucking poet.”

“Fuck you, man,” Kavisnky said, but with no real malice behind it. “Everyone deserves a name.”

“What’s his name, then?” Ronan pointed to Noah’s car where the boy's eyes had just been.

“That's just Krum.”

“Crumb? Like breadcrumbs?”

“K-R-U-M. It’s Bulgarian, dickwad. Krum was the fucking Khan of Bulgaria.”

“Why is he in Noah’s car?”

“How should I fucking know? I’ve never seen that car before in my life. This is your show, remember? But he likes to hide in dark places. Dead trees. Caves. Whatever. ”

“Will he come out of the car?”

Kavinsky shrugged. “Why the fuck do you care?”

“I’ve just...I’ve never been here before with another person. I didn’t know there were other…things? kids?…like her.”

“Well I don’t usually have heart to hearts with the little fucker. Anyway he’s basically mute so not much of a conversationalist. But if you are so fucking keen go ahead and try.”

Ronan didn't know why he was so interested in Kavinksy's dream creature or why his heart started beating so fast as he approached the damaged and decaying Mustang. Maybe it was because he knew too much about this place and its dark history; or maybe it was because he actually knew too little. Everything he thought he knew seemed small and callow all of a sudden.

He peered in through the milky spider webs of fractured glass but the seats were all empty.

“He’s gone,” Ronan said.

“Try looking harder.”

Ronan grabbed the door handle and gave a tug, but it was locked. He tried again on the passenger side but no luck. He tapped once then twice on the fractured driver’s side window but he underestimated how fragile the car was: the window ruptured beneath his fist and rained a cascade of clattering glass down all over the seat. Ronan heard a stifled cry from inside the car.

“Shit,” Ronan winced and grabbed his cut hand. He picked several shards of glass off his bloody knuckles and cursed under his breath.

He leaned in through the broken window and under the wheel saw a lumpy shape covered by a ratty gray wool blanket.

“Hey I’m sorry if I scared you. I didn’t mean to break the window like that. Are you ok?”

Kavinsky was suddenly at Ronan’s side. He offered Ronan the wadded-up piece of bloody cloth for his hand but Ronan brushed him away and shook his head like _are you out of your mind?_

Kavinsky shrugged and leaned his head into the busted window. “Yo Krummy. King Kong. Time to get out. Enough hide and seek shit for one day. Don’t you want to see what present I brought for you this time?”

Ronan looked at Kavinsky and raised an eyebrow. The only things Kavinsky had with him were his jeans, gold chain and presumably whatever pills were left in his pockets. Plus the bloody piece of cloth. But Ronan doubted even a spirit child would be impressed by such a meager and frankly disgusting offering.

They waited. No response. Ronan could barely tell if the boy was breathing or not, he was so still under the gray blanket.

“Time is fucking wasting, _kolos*_. Do you want to see it or not? I’m leaving here in 5…4…3...2…1...”

The boy finally inched down the blanket over his face and frowned sullenly at them with deeply knitted bushy eyebrows. He was curled into a ball and his head rested on top of the gas and brake pedals like they were tiny pillows. Ronan didn’t know much about children but guessed he was probably around five years old, but small and skinny for his age. His greasy matted mop of black hair stuck out in every direction and almost completely covered his eyes, which were deep-set and framed by shockingly dark purple under eye circles. His waxy skin looked like it had been sucked onto his bones like one of those air vacuum storage bags. All except for his cheeks, which were jowel-like and drooping.

He raised his arms to Kavinsky as if it say, _Ok, you win, now get me out_.

Kavinksy sighed and reached in gingerly through the broken glass window and unlocked the door from the inside. He grabbed the door handle and tugged: the door broke clean off with a loud crack and began crumbling and disintegrating to bits. Rusted metal particles mushroomed around them in a probably toxic cloud.

“Fucking piece of shit,” Kavinsky coughed and covered his eyes and face with his elbow. He reached down into the car to grab Krum, who had covered himself up with his blanket again.

Kavinsky said to Ronan, “Let’s get the fuck out of here before this whole place collapses.” He hoisted the boy up out of the car and said something angry and indiscernible into the boy’s ear in a language Ronan guessed was Bulgarian but the fuck if Ronan knew what Bulgarian sounded like. Kavinsky placed him on the ground and the boy reached out a hand once again.

Kavinsky looked at Ronan, daring him to say anything. Then he took the boy’s hand so they could walk together. As they did the boy let his blanket drag idly behind him on the ground, where it picked up bits of dirt and leaves. He was wearing mismatched pajamas and no shoes.

The second the boy saw the Camaro parked in the clearing his whole demeanor changed. His whole tired face lit up. He started bobbing up and down and making wheezing noises.

“Ok speed freak, chill out,” Kavisnky said. “Yo Lynch, Krummy here wants to go for a drive. Whaddya say?”

“You want to drive? Here? With him? This is a forest not the fucking Indie 500.”

“I told him I had a present for him, didn’t I? Get the fuck in.”

Kavinsky got into the driver’s seat and put Krum on his lap. The boy grabbed the steering wheel and started making _vroom vroom_ noises.

Ronan got in and made sure to securely fasten his seat belt.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *kolos - Bulgarian for colossus/monster


	5. Donuts

“Where to?” Kavinsky asked.

“Well, it looks like the options in front of us are trees, trees and oh look, more fucking trees,” Ronan said.

“You’re still a sarcastic prick in your own dreams, huh? Noted.”

“And you’ve still got a psychotic death wish in yours? Also noted. All I’m saying is you better not wreck Gansey’s car, I’m not coming back here for another one.”

Kavinksy snorted. “You’ll be lucky if you get this one out, from the looks of things. How about we do something more fun than whine about your girlfriend. I'm thinking…donut practice. Whaddya say Krummy, you up for it?”

Krum grinned and started wheezing excitedly again. Ronan looked around the clearing and as crazy as it sounded, he had to concede that they did in fact have enough flat space around them for donuts. Not that he would ever admit it to Kavinksy, but he had loved doing dirt drifts with his dad in the open fields of the Barns when he was a kid (and probably much too young to have been behind the wheel of a car).

Kavinsky tussled Krum’s hair. “I knew you’d like that idea. It’s donuts or Tree Chicken but I think Lynch would throw a fit if we tried our game in his girlfriend’s precious fairy-mobile.”

Ronan rolled his eyes and felt his face flush in anger but refused to take the bait. “Tree Chicken? Is that exactly what it sounds like.”

“Ever try to move one of these trees with your mind before, Lynch? It’s a fucking head rush. Better than a speedball.”

“Yeah that's not gonna happen.”

“Fine. Your loss. Donuts it is. Ok, Krummy, you’re on the wheel. I’m on gears and gas. Lynch, you can try not to piss yourself. You remember what I taught you?” he asked Krum, who nodded enthusiastically.

“I’m going hands-free so it’s all you guiding this ship. Remember: turn the wheel 45 degrees, then when I rev up you gotta throw it then snap it. You got it? Ok here we go.”

Kavinsky put the car into 1st gear and gradually pressed on the accelerator. They began moving in a big slow circle.

“Turn tighter now.”

As they picked up a little more speed, Kavinksy pressed all the way down on the clutch and pulled up on the hand brake. The rear wheels locked and the car began to skid sideways, kicking up a stream of dirt behind them. For a second Ronan thought they were going to swerve right into a nearby stand of trees and he reflexively braced his hands on the dash.

“Snap it! Snap it! Now!” Kavinsky ordered as he simultaneously floored the accelerator with a loud growl while releasing the clutch and brake.

And just like that, they were revolving in a swirling cloud of dirt, dust and exhaust. All three boys whooped as the car spun once, twice, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine times around. Ronan loved the torque and the pivot; the feeling like he was inside the eye of a tornado, however briefly.

“Straighten up now,” Kavinsky said as he eased off the accelerator.

They squealed to a stop and the dirt settled around them. Ronan shut his eyes and breathed in the arousing scent of exhaust fumes mixed with the forest’s natural undertone of pine and sap. He couldn’t help himself: there were no other scents he found sexier.

Krum bounced up and down on Kavinksy’s lap, the universal signal for _again again again_.

Kavinksy asked, “You wanna get behind the wheel and give it a try, Lynch?”

“I’ll pass. You two seem to have a whole system worked out.”

“Yeah, he may not talk much but he’s a smart little fucker, aren’t you?” Kavinsky swatted at Krum like a lion cub and the boy giggled and rammed him in the stomach with his elbow. Kavinsky made a loud exaggerated groan that set Krum off into even more giggles and more ramming and swatting.

Ronan watched them play fighting and felt a sudden stabbing pain in his chest that quickly and without warning curdled to anger. He remembered wrestling like that with Declan, back before their dad was murdered, back before his relationship with his brother hardened into the default wielding of bloody fists.

Ronan growled, “Yo Kavinsky. Quit fucking around. I gotta go. I can’t stay here all fucking day with you and - I don’t know whatever the hell he is - fucking Igor Jr. the street urchin. Time to wake the fuck up. This whole thing has been fucking bullshit.”

Ronan got out of the car and slammed the door. He clenched and unclenched his right hand, which was still bloody from breaking Noah's window. He desperately wanted to punch something.

Kavinksy got out of the car, leaving Krum inside. The forest began flickering around the edges like it had when Ronan first arrived.

“Shit shit shit,” Ronan said under his breath.

“I don’t know what your fucking problem is all of a sudden but leave the kid out of it.”

Ronan breathed and tried to keep the dream world from falling further away from him.

“Did you hear me?” Kavinsky shoved Ronan hard.

The air sparked with silent heat lightning and smelled like a forest fire.

“Yes I fucking heard you, ok?” Ronan said. “I just have to get Gansey’s car and go home. Now.” Ronan made a move toward the car but Kavinsky blocked him.

“Or what? Your boyfriend will never forgive you because you wrecked his shit? He won’t blow you anymore? That it?”

“I’ve told you a million fucking times. That’s not how it is with us.”

“Bullshit. Why did you ask me to come here with you, anyway?”

Smoke began rising up around them from the circles in the dirt where they had spun the Pig.

Ronan said, “I thought I needed your help. But I actually fucking don’t. I don’t need your help and I don’t need you. So I’m getting the fuck out of here.”

Ronan brushed passed Kavinsky and shouldered him angrily on his way to the driver’s side door, ready to pull Krum out and leave him there with Kavinsky. But when he opened the door, the seat was empty.

Krum was gone and so were the keys to the Camaro.


	6. The Twisted Tree

Ronan kicked the car’s tires and let out an inventive stream of curses.

Then he remembered the extra set of keys in his pocket: the same ones he had dreamt up that had allowed him to take Gansey’s car out and crash it in the first place. With his heart hammering with hope, he sat down in the driver’s seat and put the key in the ignition. It slid in 95% of the way and then jammed, refusing to turn. He tried twisting the key around and realigning the lock cylinder for several minutes but it was useless: the dream Pig was ever so slightly varied from the real one he had dreamed the key for and there was apparently nothing Ronan could do about it. He tried changing the shape of the key with his mind and even tried creating a new key from scratch but both yielded nothing but an extra wrinkle between his eyebrows and a mounting headache.

The dream world was done doing him favors apparently.

Kavinsky looked thoroughly nonplussed by all of these developments and Ronan’s increasingly frustrated mutterings. He in fact looked like he was thoroughly enjoying it.

“Oh yeah,” Kavinsky said and leaned into the driver’s side window, “I should have mentioned I’ve also been teaching Krum the family business. Five finger discounts and all that. I told you he was smart.”

Ronan wanted to punch Kavinsky again but realized with distaste that if he was going to find Krum he was probably going to need Kavinksy. Landing him a split lip and black eye would probably not be the best enticements for his help.

“Where do you think he’s gone off to?” Ronan asked.

“Your guess is as good as mine. Probably that way,” Kavinsky pointed to a path behind the car that led deeper into the woods, “or else we would have seen him leave, right?”

They headed toward the path; it was the same one that Orphan Girl took when she scampered away from them. Ronan crouched down and touched his fingers to the dirt, trying to ascertain if there were any small footprints or any clues whatsoever to point them in the right direction.

Kavisky said, “So now you are like, what’s his name, Aragorn from Lord of the Rings. Tracking footprints and shit. Or maybe this is your CSI wannabe moment.”

Ronan scowled and headed further into the woods ahead of Kavinsky, making sure to keep his pace several feet ahead of him. The path they followed ran parallel to a shallow stream; Ronan strained his ears for any splashing noise that would indicate if the boy had started walking in the water instead of the dirt path. He called out, “Krum! Krum! Are you there? Krum!” but got no response except for the soft rush of water carrying itself to its unknown destination.

Ronan darted his eyes every which way through the trees and underbrush as he walked in stony silence, looking for any sign of the boy’s blue pajamas or gray blanket. He asked the trees silently for help but they were not in a favor-granting mood either. Instead they hissed at him like rattlesnakes. Ronan found that if he breathed, concentrated on looking for the boy, and did not let his anger with Kavinksy (and the world in general) take over his thoughts then the forest stayed relatively solid. The more his anger clouded his mind, the more smudgy and blinking the dream world became.

They’d been walking for around 10 minutes (but time was fluid here, so it could have been much longer or shorter), still no sign of Krum, when Kavinsky said, “You know, I don’t usually stick around here this long when I’ve got a job to do. But it’s actually kind of peaceful and shit.”

Ronan considered ignoring this and continuing to give Kavinsky the silent treatment but his curiosity got the better of him.

“Yeah,” Ronan said, “I thought you said you’re always “in and out” so how come you know the kid so well? And could teach him your shitty-ass driving skills?”

Kavinsky ignored Ronan’s insult. “When I’ve got a job to do, I’m in and out, sure. That’s the only way to keep this place from changing up on you and fucking up your shit. But I don’t need to steal every time I close my god damn eyes.”

Ronan wondered what Kavinksy could possibly dream about that wasn’t the cars, drugs, guns and forgeries that earned him considerable stacks of cash in the real world.

“Another thing,” Ronan asked. “Why bother with dreaming up guns and drugs to sell at all? Why not just dream up wads of money and take it back with you? Cut out the middle man and all that fake gangster shit.”

“You ever try to read a clock in a dream, brain trust? It’s different every time you look at it. Numbers and dreams do not mix well. You end up with bills that have fucked up serial numbers and sometimes say like $1.78 on it. Easier to get the goods and get out.”

Ronan was thinking about what Kavinsky had just said and how watches and phones never worked properly (or at all) in Cabeswater when they approached a clear mountain pool. Ronan recognized it at once. It was identical to the spot in Cabeswater where Gansey had seen the school of fish turn from silver to red. Ronan got a rush of déjà vu that felt almost like vertigo. His heart started hammering and he felt once again like everything he thought he knew about the dream world and Cabeswater was being pulled apart and held together at once by a simultaneously tenuous and taut thread.

Then a sound carried through the trees that sent a shiver down Ronan’s back and made Kavinsky straighten his spine and clench his fists in a defensive stance. The sound was everywhere and nowhere at once. Ronan could not tell immediately if a human or animal was creating it but he recognized it as the anguished cry of a breaking heart. The cries were ragged and hoarse and unbearable to listen to.

“Krum! Krum!” Kavinsky called out.

“Krum! Krum! Are you there? Krum!”

“I know that’s him,” Kavinsky said and his eyes were shining and darting every which way, trying to locate the source of the wails. He screamed, “Krum! Where are you? I’m here! Come out, it’s ok!” Then to Ronan, “It’s so loud, I’ve never heard him scream this loud. Where is he?”

Ronan’s eyes traveled across the pool to a familiar tree: a menacing, twisted oak with a black rotting cavity at the base of the trunk. He felt a rock drop down to the pit of his stomach.

“There,” Ronan said. “He’s hiding in that tree.”

They sprinted toward the tree and as they got closer the cries became more and more distressed and overbearing. Ronan wanted to cover his ears and jump into the pool to mute the cacophony of fear and helplessness reverberating inside him.

Kavinksy was halfway into the gaping black hole when Ronan grabbed his arm and pulled him back. “Wait,” he said. “I know this tree. It will make you see things. Future things, nightmare things. That’s why he’s so scared. But what you see…it’s not necessarily the truth.” He released Kavinsky’s arm and Kavinsky entered the rotting cavity and disappeared from Ronan’s sight: Jonah swallowed whole by the Whale.

Ronan listened and waited, pacing back and forth in front of the tree.

He couldn’t hear what Kavinsky was saying but the cries subsided. He thought he heard a _shhhhhh_ noise but maybe it was the wind through the trees.

He waited some more. He shivered and rubbed his bare arms.

He watched the pool. It was clear and still as a mirror, not a fish in sight.

Then Ronan heard a different noise. Gagging. Gasping.

“K?” Ronan called into the tree, more worry creeping into his voice than he had expected.

“Kavinsky, are you ok?”

Ronan heard a groan and then the inhuman screams resumed once again. But this time Ronan recognized the cry: the boy’s ragged voice was a harbinger of death. Ronan had made the same noise when he saw his own father splayed out on the driveway, beaten and bloodied and curiously unmoving.

Without thinking, Ronan stepped into the cavity and was encased in bone-deep darkness.


	7. Future 4th of July

The air inside the hollow was musty and dank. The earthy smell prickled the inside of Ronan’s nostrils; he had a sudden memory of playing hide-and-seek with his brothers at the Barns and crawling through the dirt in the cramped dark space underneath their front porch. It took a second for Ronan’s eyes to adjust to the unnatural dimness of the cavern and then he saw Kavinsky slumped against the side of the tree’s rotting wall. Krum was beside him, crying his animal cry, pounding his small fists against Kavinsky’s limp body in an attempt to revive him.

Ronan crouched down and immediately placed two fingers on Kavinsky’s neck, searching for a pulse. It was there, but faint. His heartbeat felt dangerously slow, his breath too shallow.

“He’s alive, it’s ok, I’m going to help him now,” Ronan said to Krum, keeping his voice calm and steady for the boy’s sake.

Kavinsky’s head jerked and nodded forward suddenly, startling both Ronan and Krum. A sliver of his eyelids twitched open but his irises rolled up and back into his head, revealing only the creepy flickering whites of his eyes. Drool slid down his half-open mouth onto his chin. Ronan slapped him hard and said, “K! Wake up!” but Kavinsky still did not stir.

“I’m going get him out of here, ok? He’s just sleeping, ok?”

Still crouching, Ronan rotated Kavinksy’s body off of the tree wall so he could lace his arms through Kavinsky’s armpits and drag him out going backwards. Ronan wrapped his arms in a firm grip around him and hugged him tightly. Ronan’s chest pressed into the burning skin of Kavinsky’s back.

Ronan felt light-headed and too hot. He breathed and closed his eyes, preparing to heave Kavinsky out of the tree.

And then he left his body.

That is to say, when he opened his eyes, he was both in his body and out of it, observing himself and sort of hovering above himself, no longer in the tree cavity.

The other Ronan was standing in the fairground field littered with Kavinsky’s Mitsubishi rejects. He was surrounded by chaos and confusion, smoke and screaming. Fireworks exploded through the night sky in a fiery cascade of sparks. Fireballs trailed down to the ground and set the dry summer grass aflame. The pulsing bass line of an electronic dance beat kept thrumming on and on even as drunk and high partygoers scrambled for safety and ran for their lives.

Because fireworks were not the only things burning up the sky. Two awesome creatures battled and snarled thunderously above them. Pulsing party lights illuminated flashes of a dragon’s razor teeth and metallic scales. Ronan heard the terrible thrashing bird wings and snapping beak of one of his own night horrors made real.

Kavinsky stood next to the other Ronan, their heads arching back, their eyes transfixed by the violent spectacle playing out high above them. And Ronan knew they had made these creatures. And he knew one of them was going to die because of it.

The other Ronan grabbed Kavinsky by the shoulders.

“You don’t have to do this,” he said.

“There isn’t anything else, man.”

“There’s right here. Right now. There’s reality. These monsters are only real if we make them real.”

“Reality?” Kavinsky spit out the word. “Reality is what other people dream for you. When I wake up, that’s my nightmare. The world is a nightmare.”

“Don’t do this. We can stop them. I can help you.”

“It’s too late for that.”

Kavinksy broke away from Ronan just as the fire dragon escaped from the clutches of Ronan’s night horror. The dragon wailed, spewing a stream of angry fire, and readied itself to dive. The yellow light from his blazing breath cast a warm glow on Kavinsky’s upturned face. Ronan saw a line slowly etching down the smoky soot on Kavinsky’s cheek. Ronan knew that when the dragon dove for them Kavinsky would do nothing to get out of its way.

The other Ronan reached for Kavinsky again and cupped his face in his hands. He pulled their foreheads close. He shuddered and inhaled the heady scent of gasoline and a forest fire. He brushed away the wetness on Kavinsky's cheek and pressed his thumb in a hard deep line down his face, leaving a trail of streaky soot. He said, “If you are going to fucking kill yourself the least you can do is kiss me good-bye.”


	8. Five of Cups

Ronan stepped out of the dream-within-a-dream and for a few disoriented seconds he thought the reason he was grasping onto Kavinsky so tightly was to pull him out of the way of the rapidly descending fire dragon instead of out of the tree and into the dappled light of the dream forest. Ronan was a raw-edged bundle of nerves and confusion but his body knew what to keep doing.

He dragged him down to the edge of the pool and splashed water on his face. He slapped him and said, “K, wake up! This is just a dream, you can’t die for real in a dream, don’t you dare fucking die on me in a dream.”

He was about to start administering CPR when Kavisnky’s eyes bolted open and he gasped a shuddering breath as if his heart and lungs had just been resuscitated by an antidote injection or defibrillator. He rolled over to his side, clutching his stomach, and dry-retched in terrible gagging spasms.

“Here. Drink.” Ronan said. He cupped a handful of cold water and offered it to Kavinsky’s feverish mouth. Cup after cup, Ronan offered and cup after cup, Kavinsky received. He drank five handfuls and greedily sucked down and swallowed every drop. He drank and pressed his warm lips and tongue into the meaty flesh of Ronan’s curved palm. He drank even though more water spilled through the slits of Ronan’s fingers onto Kavinksy's chin and chest than down his throat. He drank and the tight ball of fear inside Ronan slackened ever so slightly.

In a hoarse whisper Kavinsky said finally, “What the fuck just happened to me?”

“Don’t you remember what you saw in the tree?”

Kavinsky slowly sat up. He didn’t answer Ronan’s question.

Instead, he reached for Krum, who had been wrapped in his blanket, rocking back and forth, whimpering and quietly crying. He placed Krum on his lap and the boy hugged him tightly around the stomach. Kavinsky told him something in his ear in the language Ronan couldn’t understand.

Ronan couldn’t bear to look at them. He stood up and turned to face the pool instead. He gazed at the mirrored surface and the upside-down world it contained. He stuffed his hands in his pockets and chewed the inside of his cheek.

Ronan knew that what everyone sees in the tree is personal. You don’t share the vision with the person you are inside with. There was no way Kavinsky could have also seen it.

He knew that the tree was not an oracle. It showed you one possible truth out of many possible truths; one future out of many possible futures. It laid bare your worst fears and nightmares but did not guarantee they would come true.

But that knowledge still didn’t keep Ronan’s face from burning remembering what he’d seen. And felt. And touched. And desired. It couldn’t keep his heart from hammering in arrhythmic jolts against his ribs nor keep his skin from prickling almost painfully with a buzzing electric current. It couldn’t stop the sickening dread rising like bile in his stomach. Because he knew the truth was there in what the tree had revealed to him: that despite the many paths and circuitous routes the future could take to get to there, Kavinsky was able and willing to burn down the world and himself with it. Unless Ronan could somehow stop him.

After a few minutes of soothing, Krum was calm. “Blow,” Kavinsky said and the boy blew his runny nose noisily into the gray blanket. “Remind me to make you a new blanket next time I’m here. This one is more snot blanket than actual blanket now. How can you be so small and still have so many boogers is a big mystery.” The boy giggled.

Ronan said, “Tell him I need the key back now.” His back was still turned to them. “We’ve stayed too long.”

Krum stood up and handed the keys to Ronan sheepishly.

“Thanks, buddy. Take care of yourself.”

Then Ronan said to Kavinsky, “Listen, I gotta get out of here. Back to the car. I just need to leave. I guess I’ll just…I’ll see you back on the other side.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title refers to Five of Cups tarot card (loss, bereavement, regret)


	9. Who Killed Cock Robin?

Ronan began walking back down the path toward the clearing where the Camaro was parked. Though it would be more accurate to say that he started _thrashing_ his way back because every step was accompanied by a violent kick of whatever leaf, pebble, twig, branch or puddle was in the way of his heavy boots. He grasped the car keys so tightly in his pocket that they bit sharply into his palm. But he didn’t mind the stinging sensation. He craved it.

Fucking Kavinsky.

All the synapses in Ronan’s brain were firing furiously to try and process everything he had just seen and felt. To try and figure out what the hell to do next.

How could he possibly stop Future Kavinsky from creating that dragon? How could he keep him out of the dream world? He couldn’t force him to stay awake indefinitely, that would just make him go insane and eventually kill him. Could he force him to not dream, though? Maybe there was a med used for PTSD or anxiety that helped people with chronic nightmares? But no such medicine existed as far as Ronan knew that would permanently turn off the part of your brain responsible for dreams. Did it? Ronan shuddered at the idea of someone forcing away his ability to dream. It would be worse than a lobotomy. But what if it was for the greater good? So no one got killed?

But even if he did keep Kavinsky from dreaming, that would just be a temporary fix. The fact was, Kavinksy was dangerous, both to himself and everyone around, because he didn’t care if he lived or died. He thrived off of chaos and annihilation. Why else would he embrace such self-destructive habits—the hard drinking, drugs, reckless street racing and god knows what else—if he didn’t have some sort of underlying death wish?

Ronan knew a little about what that felt like. He knew anger. He knew self-hate. But he still felt powerless about how to help. And the fact was, Kavinsky would never willingly agree to Ronan’s help. He would probably kill Ronan before he admitted that underneath all his posturing was a world of hurt in need of healing.

Ronan thought maybe he could force Kavinsky into rehab, but he knew rehab is usually only effective if the addict recognizes he has a problem and wants to seek treatment. Would Kavinksy ever recognize this about himself? Was there even a tiny part of him that wanted to get clean? That wanted to live? What kept him going now? Ronan didn’t know. He couldn’t help but wonder what Kavinsky had seen in the tree and why it had nearly killed him.

Then there was the issue of the disappearance of Cabeswater and the sapped ley lines. Ronan _needed_ to keep Kavinsky out of the dream world, he was fucking up the entire energy ecosystem, wasn’t he? It was Kavinsky’s fault for taking too much. Being greedy. He was leaving Ronan no choice.

Ronan arrived back at the clearing, approached the car and was surprised to see Orphan Girl seated in the passenger seat. Great. Just what Ronan needed right now.

“What do you want?” he asked her as he sat down in the driver’s seat and put the key into the ignition. He felt an enormous flood of relief when it slid in with no resistance.

She hummed a little tune and sang, “ _Two little dickie birds sitting on a wall. One named Peter, one named Paul. Fly away Peter! Fly away Paul! Come back Peter! Come back Paul!”_

“Great, it must be story hour in Creepy Kindergarten. Anything else?” Ronan dead-panned.

 _“Who killed Cock Robin?_  
_I, said the Sparrow,_  
_with my bow and arrow,_  
_I killed Cock Robin._

 _Who saw him die?_  
_I, said the Fly,_  
_with my little eye,_  
_I saw him die._

 _Who caught his blood?_  
_I, said the Fish,_  
_with my little dish,_  
_I caught his blood._

 _Who'll make the shroud?_  
_I, said the Beetle,_  
_with my thread and needle,_  
_I'll make the shroud._

 _Who'll dig his grave?_  
_I, said the Owl,_  
_with my little trowel,_  
_I'll dig his grave._ ”

Ronan felt a sickening dread and a vertigo-like sense of déjà vu as she sang in her off-key and lilting child’s voice. He knew he had heard the song before, had heard the same lullaby that was actually the stuff of nightmares. His dad had sung it to him.

“Stop it!” Ronan cried out with such force of anger that he even surprised himself.

Orphan Girl flinched and recoiled away from Ronan, grasping the handle of the door.

“Your father taught me that song. He was here. Now you are here. But Cabeswater is not. It's not his fault.” Orphan Girl said in a near-whisper. She scrambled from the car and slammed the door shut behind her.

Ronan thought he should go after her but it was too late. He felt himself slipping. The edges of his vision wavered as if he was surrounded by bending light, like he’d stepped into the middle of a blurry heat wave steaming off a black asphalt road on a sunny day.

He smelled car exhaust and a campfire.

He felt dizzy. His thoughts scattered like smoke. _Liar liar pants on fire. Stop, drop and roll. Feet to the fire. Irons in the fire. Great balls of fire. Out of the frying pan into the fire. Fired up. Fire escape._

Forest fire. Dragon fire. Kavinsky himself was fire.

So how do you put out a fire? 1. Shut off the fuel supply. 2. Smother it.

Ronan knew deep down what he needed to do, he just didn’t know quite how to do it. He felt himself stepping away from his dream world body, sliding back to reality.

But before he slipped away entirely from the dream world, he imagined furiously.


End file.
